Users of the World Wide Web and other network resources often access networked information through a portal server. A portal server compiles information from different sources and sends the information in a “portal page” to the user. Information collected from each source and included in the portal page is called a “portlet.”
In the prior art, when a user requests a portal page, the portal server attempts to retrieve each of the portlets before sending the portal page to the user. If one of these portlets takes an excessive amount of time to retrieve, the entire portal page may be delayed. The user may become frustrated during the delay and may even decide against waiting for the portal page. Eventually, the portal server may send a message to the user indicating that the portlet is unavailable. However, by this time, the user has already been required to wait through an attempt to load the portlet, and he or she may choose not to visit the portal page again.